Skinner's Dress Suit Part 7

"There's nothing startling in that."

"No--but what do you suppose Skinner's wife said to Mrs. Mac?"

Perkins sighed heavily at the bare suggestion. "What the deuce has that got to do with me?"

"Wait till I tell you. She almost wept on Mrs. Mac's neck while she told her how grateful she was--grateful for the way we had shown our appreciation of Skinner!"

Perkins p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "The deuce you say!"

"I thought you'd come to," said McLaughlin.

"What did she mean by that?"

"Don't know. Mrs. Mac asked her what she was driving at--and she said I 'd understand. She wanted me to know how she felt about it--that's all!"

Perkins's only comment was, "Curious!"

"Say, Perk," McLaughlin went on, "do you reckon she was trying to be sarcastic--trying to give us a sly dig for turning Skinner down?"

"He'd never tell her that."

"Then what _did_ she mean?"

Perkins shrugged his shoulders.

McLaughlin knitted his brows. "I don't understand it." He drummed on the table with the paper-knife. "I told you I was afraid of worms," he said after a pause.

"He has n't begun to turn yet."

"How do you know? Hang it! A worm is always turning. There's no telling when he begins. He crawls in curves."

"Oh, rats!" was Perkins's only comment.

"Rats, eh? Skinner asked for a raise, did n't he? He did n't get it, did he? Right on top of it he comes out in gay attire--both of 'em!

You ought to have seen 'em, Perk. No hand-me-down! The real thing!"

McLaughlin paused longer than usual. He looked troubled. "Say, Perk,"

he said presently, "somehow, I'm afraid this particular worm of ours is pluming for flight."

"That's a dainty metaphor, Mac, but it's a little mixed."

McLaughlin glared at Perkins. He hated these petty corrections.

"Ain't a caterpillar a worm, my Harvard prodigy?"

"I grant you that."

"Don't he turn into a b.u.t.terfly? Don't he plume for flight?"

McLaughlin nailed each successive argument with a bang of his fist on the desk.

"Ain't Skinner getting to be a social b.u.t.terfly? Get the connection?

My metaphor may be mixed, as you say,--which I don't understand,--but my logic is O.K. Say, ain't it?"

"Your metaphor, Mac, suggests a picture. Imagine Skinner with wings on--those long legs drooping down or trailing behind him--like a great Jersey mosquito!"

At which they both laughed.

"Well," said McLaughlin, resignedly turning to the papers on his desk, "it beats me, that's all!"

Skinner had accurately reckoned that McLaughlin's wife would repeat Honey's cryptic remarks to the boss, and so, next day, he felt a natural constraint when in the presence of the senior partner.

Constraint in the one reacted upon and caused constraint in the other, until it looked as if McLaughlin and Skinner, who had once been quite sociable as boss and clerk, would be little more than speaking acquaintances, after a time.

At any rate, that night Skinner jotted down:--

_Dress-Suit Account_

_Debit_ _Credit_

A certain constraint on the part of McLaughlin.

"Have _you_ noticed anything in Skinner's conduct, Perk?" said McLaughlin, two days later.

"You're getting morbid about Skinner, Mac."

"No, I ain't, either. But he acts--somehow, I can't get it out of my head that his wife meant--you know what!"

"You think Skinner told her we raised him?"

"That's it!"

"Suppose he did," said Perkins; "what of it?"

"How could he square it with her?" said McLaughlin slowly.

The partners looked at each other with a certain understanding, not too definite--just a suggestion.

"You think I'm morbid, Perk. You think I see things that ain't so.

Just you keep your eye on him. See how he acts to you."

But Skinner had more than any constraint on the part of McLaughlin to worry him. His real concern found its source in the domestic circle.

At first, he was exuberant, intoxicated with the vision of social possibilities. But now a reaction had set in, a reaction promoted by the att.i.tude of Honey. Honey, too, was now constrained. Skinner persistently pressed her to tell him what was the matter. She finally admitted that she was frightened by the plunge into extravagance they'd taken. They had made a big hole in their bank account. To her, it was like blasting a rock from under the foundation of the wall which for years they had been building up, stone by stone, to stand between them and dest.i.tution.

At times, when Skinner allowed his mind to dwell on it, he was shocked.

But being the chief sinner in the matter, he felt it inc.u.mbent on him to bolster up the faltering spirits of Honey. He would not for a moment admit to her that they had acted unwisely. Even so, he was protesting against the conviction that was gradually deepening within him that he'd made something of a fool of himself!

Invariably, it was during these fits of abstraction, superinduced by the doubt that was broadening in Skinner's consciousness as to the wisdom of his scheme of self-promotion, that either McLaughlin or Perkins encountered him--so curiously does fate direct our affairs with a view to promoting dramatic ends. Once, in the depths of abstraction, Skinner actually pa.s.sed Perkins in the pa.s.sageway without so much as a nod of recognition.